Chapter 3, here by popular demand, well two people demanded it and that's good enough for me! All Reviews/criticism /ideas are welcome so read and review…
Insure YourCellf.
Cell read the Newspaper in dismay. It appeared Ernie had been right, global warming had knocked him off the front page! With a heavy sigh, he put down the newspaper and turned to his breakfast. Apparently it was a French breakfast. Cell was 100 sure that it was a genuine French breakfast too. And that the hotel had clearly imported it from France in an un-refrigerated cargo ship and left it in storage two months before serving it! He was beginning to regret intimidating the waitress into bringing him an extra croissant. Still at least he had the room to himself. Everyone else had seen him and decided they were no longer hungry. The smile was wiped off Cells face when Ernie Becclestone entered the room.
"Good morning Cell" he said beaming "How did you sleep?"
"Not so well actually" Cell replied, "The bed was two foot too short and I ended up sleeping on the floor"
"Great!" said Ernie with out even the slightest hint that he had actually listened to what Cell had said, "Now here's your schedule for the day." he finished handing Cell a sheet of paper with a surprisingly large amount of witting on it.
Cell quickly skim read it. The plan for the day appeared to involve making a lot of speeches in a lot of different cities within a very short space of time.
"A bit packed isn't it" he commented.
"Yes it's a very busy day" replied Ernie quickly getting up and pulling the surprised Android out of his chair, "so we better get going."
"What about my Break…" Cell began, but he shut up quickly. If he complained about the breakfast there was a small chance Ernie might allow him to go back and finish it.
Half an hour and a terrifying car journey though New York later and Cell found himself outside a large football stadium.
"Here we are" said Ernie cheerfully "The location for your first speech."
"Right" said Cell, "Wait, what speech?"
"All sorted," Ernie replied getting out of the car. Cell moved to follow him to enquire exactly what Ernie meant by "all sorted" but as soon as he got out of the car he was hit in the face with a piece of rubbish! Cell looked around furiously to seen who had thrown it; unfortunately there were rather a lot of suspects. For a crowd had gathered to see him arrive and they weren't exactly friendly. Shouts of "Murderer" and "Freak" flew though the air along with rubbish and the odd brick. Cell wasn't in the least bit worried.
"You asked for it" he said calmly powering up an energy ball in his hand. However before he could fire it Ernie intervened.
"What are you doing" he shouted at Cell.
"Handing out candy!" replied Cell, "What dose it look like I'm doing?"
"You can't blow them up." protested Ernie
"Why not, they started it!"
"It's rule number one of business," Ernie explained, "Never blow up your customers!"
"These people aren't customers, they hate me!" Cell protested.
"No, they have an interest in you" Ernie replied, "Anyway I don't want people throwing rubbish at you for free so come on!" Cell sighed, lobbed the energy ball away and followed Ernie in to the dressing room. He could have blown those people up, he told himself, but it wouldn't have been worth the lecture about customer service and profit margins he would have got for Ernie. Any way he needed to talk to Ernie about this speech.
By the time he got into the dressing room however, Ernie was no where to be seen. Instead Cell was given a towel and directed to the showers, some members of the crowd had been pretty good shots. After the shower Cell tried to catch Ernie's attention again but the only response he got was "Just a sec." or "In a minute". Cell filled the time by twiddling his thumbs and reminiscing about how much easier life had been when he had only had to worry about absorbing people and Piccolo. Eventually Ernie came over to him,
"Right we're ready for you" he said directing Cell towards the pitch door, "There's a whole stadium of people out there who have come to see you. Go out there and let them know what The Cell Games is all about."
"Right," Cell replied determinedly, "WAIT, what am I going to say? You never told me to write a speech!"
"That's because it's been written for you." Ernie Replied.
"You wrote my speech?"
"It's all good stuff," reassured Ernie,
"But shouldn't I have written the speech," Cell protested, "I mean people will be quoting this as my own words, surly they should be." Ernie laughed,
"No one writes their own speeches nowadays Cell." He said, "If they did they would have to spend ages writing them and they wouldn't be able to make as many."
"I guess so…" Cell conceded,
"All the best politicians have speech writers" Ernie continued "So your hardly in bad company, Listen that's the announcer, your on!" and with that he shoved Cell out of the tunnel and on to the pitch, "Just read the television screen." Ernie called after him.
Cell ran the gauntlet of rubbish and bricks across the pitch and to a stage erected in the centre of it. To Cells relief the stage was out of range of even the most athletically thrown missile and he could put up with the booing. Cell confidently walked up to the microphone on the stage and began to speak.
"Good morning insert city nam… New York!" he began "You probably know me. I'm Cell the evil android. In seven days time I will destroy the world, and wipe your miserable race out of existence." this is good stuff he thought before continuing "Unless" he paused dramatically, "Unless you can find a fighter strong enough to beat me in a fight to the death. If in seven days time you can defeat me in Pepsi Presents the Cell Games then your lives, and the lives of all you care for, will be spared. The only question is, ARE YOU UP TO THE CHALLNEGE!" Cell stood back and listened in delight as the crowd shouted "YES" in reply. Finally Ernie was living up to his promise of getting people interested in The Cell Games. And Cell couldn't wait to crush these people's false hope.
He was ready to stop there but he noticed that there was more on the TV screen to read. Feeling like he was getting in to the swing of things Cell proceeded to read on.
"But I'm not just here to talk about that!" he continued, "I'm also here to talk about INSURNACE!" he took another dramatic pause, "Did you know over 50 of Americans live in under insured homes" he stopped suddenly, and re read what he had just said before turning back to the mike,
"Excuse me for just a sec would you?" he said to the crowd, before leaving the stage and returning to the dressing room to fine Ernie.
"What's wrong with you!" he demanded when he found him "You said this event was to promote The Cell Games, you never said anything about selling insurance!"
"But the insurance company rented the stadium for us and that cost a lot of money," Ernie explained, "So it was the least I could do in return."
"I'm an evil killer Android" Cell replied as his blood boiled, "I don't do "things in return!" I'm here to terrify…"
"Have you read this?" interrupted Ernie, "there are some pretty scary statistics in here!"
"THAT'S NOT THE POINT" Cell almost screamed, "IT WILL SEND THE AUDIENCE TO SLEEP!"
"They don't matter." Ernie replied.
"Then why couldn't I blow them up then!"
"Because they hadn't paid to get in back then" he said "now they have they're not important"
"But…but I thought we were trying to get them to come to the Cell games." Said Cell rapidly switching from angry to confused.
"Yes" replied Ernie "But most of the target audience are at home and will only seen this on the evening news bulletin, and none of them will mention the insurance speech."
"Why not?"
"Because there all hoping to get exclusive TV coverage of The Cell Games and there bright enough to know that they won't get it if they make you look stupid." Ernie explained.
"Ha, you admit it!" declared Cell "This speech is stupid."
"Fine" Ernie replied taking on a defeated turn, "Don't make the speech, we'll lose our funding and cancel the tour and then…"
"I'm going I'm going" grumbled Cell.
He hurried back to the stage and continued reading but no matter how much energy he put in to it and how quickly he read it he couldn't make the speech interesting enough or short enough to finish it before the audience fell asleep.
"Wwwelll thank you Cell for that fascinating speech" said the announcer as he leapt out of the chair he had been dozing in. "And now folks we have something really special for you!" he declared loud enough to wake up the audience. "I believe Cell's going to give us a demonstration of his awesome power!" Cell smiled.
"Right whom should I kill?" he asked himself.
"KILL!" repeated the announcer in horror. "No no no, don't kill anyone, we though you would just blow up some of those vehicles, see!" he said pointing to a few cars and a bus parked in the stadium.
"I bet the grounds man would rather I killed someone then blew up a car on his pitch." suggested Cell hopefully.
"Ha-ha, funny" said the announcer sarcastically, "Just blow up the Car." Cell seriously considered killing the announcer for that but it occurred to him that they might have trouble hiring a replacement, and he really didn't feel like losing another argument with Ernie. So, after merely punching the announcer, Cell turned his attention to blowing up the car. The explosion was larger than Cell expected, but he was willing to believe that he hit the fuel tank or something, the crowd disagreed.
"TRICK TRICK TRICK" they chanted. This was the last straw of what had been a long morning.
"YOU WANT TO SEE POWER!" he bellowed into the microphone "FINE THEN! I'M GOING TO THROW THIS BUS CLEAN OUT OF THE STADIUM!" Cell furiously grabbed the front of the bus and lifted it up. As he began to swing it he heard a voice call out,
"Wait don't do that!" but it was too late…
Cell immerged from his second shower of the day with all the soot washed off.
"I didn't know you were such a show android." congratulated Ernie.
"I didn't intend for the bus to explode in my hand!" declared Cell angrily, "If I had known that it was full of explosives I never would have tried to throw it! Did you really need to do that any way?"
"We thought it would make the display more spectacular" Ernie replied, "And boy was I right the crowd loved it."
"Yes I could here the laughter" pointed out Cell "And I didn't like it, they were acting as though I was a cartoon character!"
"I wonder where they could have got that idea from." mused Ernie, "Anyway the important thing is that you really promoted The Cell Games today."
"Yeah" said Cell "I guess I did."
"And let's face it" said Ernie trying not to laugh, "No one will ever forget the look on your face when the smoke cleared!" he finished finally cracking up. "Come on lets go we've got five more events to get though before midnight." Cell sighed and began to get up.
"This better be worth it Ernie," said Cell menacingly "Because if The Cell Games isn't the most watched event in history after I've done all this you'll be the first competitor! Understand!"
"Of course, of course" said Ernie calmly, "I new what I was getting in to when I agreed to work with a homicidal Android."
"Good" replied Cell while cursing Ernie's self confidence in his head.
"Oh just one more thing," Ernie said before they got in the car. "We've updated the name again."
"WHAT, I mean what is it now?" asked Cell full of dread.
"Pepsi Presents The RBC Cell Games," Ernie replied, "I hope that's okay?"
Cell didn't say anything instead he turned away and put his head in his hands. Ernie wasn't sure, but he though he heard sobbing.
Hope you enjoyed that. Please let me know what you think, how it could be improved or what Ernie or Cell should do next. All you have to do is review!